Score is: Love All
by kazukikari
Summary: Ryoma suggests that him and Sakuno play a match together. If she can take a point off of him he tells her he will do somthing for her...Whats a girl to do when the boy she likes challanges her!


Score is: Love All

Throwing the ball in the air and serving it to the other side of the court with as much strength as he used to. Ryoma had been gone to America and was now back in Japan. After a couple of years traveling around Japan he had finally come back to the hometown where he started off his tennis matches with the Seigaku tennis team. He had a bucket of neon green tennis balls on the ground by his feet and his old tennis racket in the palm of his hand. The force of his kick serve had done him well, but he was not all too hyped about tennis anymore. He loved it of course, but it was the same old same old when it came down to the matches. Ryoma felt as if he were missing something important.

From out on the bench Sakuno had come up from the large hill to the abandoned tennis courts. It was a quiet place she went to practice at. There was no one there hogging the courts and she was free to think about anything there. The one thing being Ryoma, she had not seen him in years and began to cope with the fact that she may never see him again.

But the sound of a ball hitting the strings of the tennis racket struck her as odd. All the times she had been up there to play tennis no one was there, not even once. So to hear the sounds of a person playing made her curious. She had actually dropped the balls she had been carrying and ran to the top with her own racket in hand. It was almost like seeing a ghost, she swore she was seeing Ryoma there warming up but told her mind that it was playing tricks on her. It was only until Ryoma turned to look at her that she believed that he was the real deal standing there in front of him.

"Yo", he said with a slight wave towards her. Sakuno didn't want to keep all of her excitement bottled up, her crush was right there and so close that she could just reach out to him. But instead she decided to act as natural as she could.

"When did you get back Ryoma," she asked in a frenzy as she gripped her tennis racket against her chest and ran on over to him. By this time Ryoma had stopped what he was doing and stood up straight to talk to Sakuno.

When Sakuno ran up to talk to him she could not believe how tall he had gotten. She remembered back in middle school when she and Ryoma were about the same in height, but it seemed that he had a sudden shot of a growth spurt come out of nowhere. He seemed more of a man now.

Sakuno on the other hand had also grown to be a very beautiful lady. Since she had first been told her hair was too long, according to Ryoma, so she wore her hair in a ponytail. She had cut it so when she wore it down it reached the middle of her back.

"Ah, oh you probably don't remember me huh…?" She asked looking at the ground and then moving her eyes to look up back at him. Her face blushed pink as she began to revert to her old shy self like she was a couple of years back.

"You're Sakuno, the coach's daughter," Ryoma pointed out as he looked away and began to bounce one of the tennis balls up and down on the concrete down. He stopped and looked over at her and smiled, "It's good to see you again."

Sakuno looked up and smiled widely. It had been far too long since she heard Ryoma say her name, Of course now she was like a giddy schoolgirl.

Ryoma smiled as she looked excited, he remembered how she used to be in the past, how she would always follow him around asking things. Even if she had not noticed him caring for her Ryoma did. That brought him back to the thought of something missing. Upon seeing Sakuno again he felt like the large gap in his chest was beginning to close.

That was when he had an idea, "Let's play a game" he said to Sakuno. She stopped fleeting around looked at him. "A game?" She asked. He was way better than she was but she really didn't want to tell him no.

"Well sure, but I am still not as good as you are," Sakuno said bluntly. She wanted him to know that she couldn't possibly win against him.

"How about this, "Ryoma started as he began to bounce the ball again, "if you can take at least one point from me I have something to ask you," he said stopping the ball in his palm and looking at Sakuno from the rim of his hat.

Sakuno's eyes lit up as she blushed, "sure, uh I mean okay!" She said. He had really lifted his spirits. She instantly ran to the other side of the court and readied herself. Ryoma smiled once more, her enthusiasm about tennis really cheered him up.

"Okay, here it comes," He said to ready her. Sakuno nodded her head and made sure to stay on her toes. The years of her own tennis playing had made her all out ability improve. Ryoma threw the ball up and wacked it with the head of his racket. The strings made the ball go flying past Sakuno before she even had time to think.

"Woah…" she said in a shaky voice as she turned her head and the ball hit the chain fence behind her and rolled on the ground almost next to her foot. This brought back memories of his strength, so Sakuno now felt she wasn't good enough to even take one point. His tosses, serves and even hits had become better.

Through the five games they played, Sakuno was not once able to take a single point from her opponent. She seemed a little out of breath as well. They were in the last round of the last game. Ryoma felt a little bad for her. He had tried to go easy on her, but going easy on someone was not easy for him. He was too good to go easy on a person. He threw the ball. From the look on Sakuno's face she didn't look as if she were going to give in even though they were down to the last possible point.

He hit the ball and it came flying at her, she lifted her racket out to the side and the ball just hit the rim of the head and went sailing back towards Ryoma. He expected that from her, but he wanted her to have a point at the very least. He lunged for the ball and on purpose the ball missed the head of his racket by a quarter of an inch.

Sakuno could not believe what she had just seen. She was jumping up and down happy that she had gotten a point off of him. Ryoma smiled back.

"I guess a deal is a deal right?" He said walking over to her side of the court. She stopped her jumping up and down and watched as he came up to her, a smile still across his face.

"Since you won I will buy you a soda, how does that sound?" He asked. Sakuno didn't care if the reward was a shake of their hands. As long as she was with her Ryoma again it didn't matter to her. She nodded her head with a yes.

So Ryoma went and cleaned the tennis balls off of the court and left the bucket of balls on the court and stashed his racket in his bag and swung it over his shoulder.

As they walked to the vending machine he looked at Sakuno. He thought that maybe that missing thing was her. But the only way to find out was the little things he would do. And one being buying her a soda. Wherever things went from there, he would just go with it.


End file.
